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Reformulating the Cube Law for Proportional Representation Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Rein Taagepera
Rein Taagepera*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Abstract

The cube law was proposed around 1910 to express the conversion of a party's vote shares into its seat share in two-party plurality elections with single-seat districts. This article develops predictive seat-vote equations for a much wider range of elections, including those involving many parties, single- and multi-seat districts, and diverse seat allocation rules such as plurality and list proportional representation (PR). Without any statistical curve fitting based on the seat and vote shares themselves, the basic features of the conversion are predicted using exogenous parameters: magnitude and number of districts, number of parties, and total size of the electorate and of the assembly. The link between the proposed equations and the original cube law is explicated. Using an existing data base, the fit of the predictive model is examined. On balance, this model accounts well for the conversion of votes to seats, and for the deviation from proportionality in PR systems.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 489 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1986

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